' Create an array of Integer values that represent grades.
Dim grades() As Integer = {59, 82, 70, 56, 92, 98, 85}
' Get the highest three grades by first sorting
' them in descending order and then taking the
' first three values.
Dim topThreeGrades As IEnumerable(Of Integer) =
grades _
.OrderByDescending(Function(grade) grade) _
.Take(3)
' Display the results.
Dim output As New System.Text.StringBuilder("The top three grades are:" & vbCrLf)
For Each grade As Integer In topThreeGrades
output.AppendLine(grade)
Next
MsgBox(output.ToString())
' This code produces the following output:
'
' The top three grades are:
' 98
' 92
' 85

Remarks

This method is implemented by using deferred execution. The immediate return value is an object that stores all the information that is required to perform the action. The query represented by this method is not executed until the object is enumerated either by calling its GetEnumerator method directly or by using foreach in Visual C# or For Each in Visual Basic.

Take enumerates source and yields elements until count elements have been yielded or source contains no more elements. If count exceeds the number of elements in source, all elements of source are returned.

If count is less than or equal to zero, source is not enumerated and an empty IEnumerable<T> is returned.

The Take and Skip methods are functional complements. Given a sequence coll and an integer n, concatenating the results of coll.Take(n) and coll.Skip(n) yields the same sequence as coll.

In Visual Basic query expression syntax, a Take clause translates to an invocation of Take.